Review: Assault Heroes

Posted by Chubiggans on February 17th, 2010 | 0 Comments | Tags: Assault Heroes

The main focus I had with this review was going to be the outdated feel of the game, as if this was coming at the forefront of the dawn of downloadable distribution on consoles. Looking up the developer info, I was surprised to find that this is, in fact, a port of a three year old Xbox Live Arcade game.

Three years certainly doesn’t sound like a lot of time for this next generation, but hoo boy, have we come a long way.

Assault Heroes is the standard shoot-em-up twin stick arcade action with a car/boat/man going along a fixed path, upgrading guns with powerup icons and trying not to die before you reach the next checkpoint. There’s not much story to go by here, which is fine with me considering how awfully shoddy the few cutscenes are in this game (one in particular had such horrible draw distance that I was getting flashbacks from the ol’ PS1 days). It’s just a plain old shooter, which would be just fine with me had the genre not been done much better since its original release. The game doesn’t shy away from the same $10 price it had just three years prior either, nevermind the fact that it’s half the price on the 360.

Maybe I’m being too hard on the game. I look at some old reviews of the 360 version, all praising the game for its fun gameplay mechanics and old school throwbacks. I play the game some more. It’s still not clicking for me. Maybe it’s the completely un-fun on foot segments through bland corridors which are thankfully optional. Or perhaps it’s the lackluster graphics and bugs that I’ve come across (you’re engine sound will cut out during the course of the game). The bosses seem uninspired and lame, especially the final boss, which just seems so lazily put together that I couldn’t figure out just what the heck I was shooting half the time (a bug cocoon appears, then fades away to a big gigantic ball, then a weird space vortex, and finally a robot. Ok then.)

Online co-op is nice, as is local co-op, but I’m unsure as to why Konami would waste their time porting over this old game at the same three year old price, when a brand new sequel (released in 2008) would undoubtedly be better. This game feels like a pointless cash in, and I can’t really recommend it.

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here. This review is for the PlayStation 3 version of the game.